The Indian hat trick

Hats are tricky to wear and talk about. Mention the word and all those tired hat phrases come tumbling out -- "hats off", "keep your hat on", "throw your hat in the ring', "pulling a rabbit out of your hat" and so on. The wearing part is even trickier: it's easy to look stupid in the wrong hat. And that's why, for a while, hats went out of fashion in the West.

But like the revival of many other things from the past, hats are once again becoming a style statement. Milliner Solenne Roland is hoping that more people will start wearing these now.

Of her decision to move from her home country, France (with her diplomat husband and three children), to India six months ago, she says, "There are so many stylish Indian women. I want to work in India even though I know that there is, right now, no market for hats here. But Indian women love Western clothes." And she adds for good measure, "India has always inspired me and I believe in opportunities and my good luck."

Opportunity and luck have both favoured Roland. Though Roland was working in a publishing house doing art books after completing art studies at the Sorbonne, she decided at age 30, after the birth of her first child, to take up hat-making professionally. She says of that decision, "I have a deep respect for handicrafts."

After an intensive course in hat-making, Roland took an exam and decided to pursue the traditional way of making the accessory. She says, "The work is quite manual." Explaining the process, she says, "I go to a mould maker in France -- and there aren't very many left -- after I make a drawing and then the mould is made. Then, I use steam water to make whatever material I am using, which is generally stiff, more fluid so that it takes the shape of the mould."

The work, however, isn't done yet. Roland continues, "Then you nail the fabric on the mould and let it dry. After that you take the nails out and that's when the creative work starts."

The technical part of making a hat takes a minimum of 15 hours and can go up to 70 hours. The creative part, where you embellish the hat, of course, can take time and effort depending on how elaborate you want it to be.

Roland also believes in using quality materials like fur, felt (only the rabbit's neck and back), silk, straw and, sometimes, even semi-precious stones for embellishment.

Naturally, her hats cost a pretty penny, starting from ¤500 and going up to ¤2,500, though Roland points out that the sky is really the limit for how expensive a hat can be. The price depends on what all has been used to make it.

Soon after Roland learned the craft, she won a prestigious competition and from there on there have been other glamourous associations -- be it Aga Khan's daughter-in-law photographed wearing a hat designed by her or Liza Minelli's interest in her work, or working on hats as part of a team for the Dior Haute Couture show in 2006.

In all this success, Roland sees India's contribution. She says, "The little red hat that I designed for the hat competition that I won was inspired by the Ramayana." Apart from hats, Roland also makes head jewellery, a happy little cross between a traditional hat and a piece of ornamentation

For clients who come directly to her, Roland spends considerable amount of time to suss out their tastes and the final product, completely hand-made by Roland, is a marriage of the client's taste and her's.

She says of this delicate process, "I try to find a balance." Roland now is working on an exhibition that she plans to have in September in India.

It would be easy -- using another tired hat cliché -- to dismiss Roland as a mad hatter for wanting to set up a hat making and selling enterprise in India, but then stranger things have been known to happen.

Who, for instance, would have thought that evening gowns would one day be the rage among Indian women? And hats only seem to be the natural progression of this change in taste for evening wears. Dare one then say, let's doff our hats to Roland for bringing this trend single-handedly to this country?